##ifism In Virginia Woolf'sThoughts On Peace In An Air Raid?

People are colliding into battles continuously around the globe. It's not always a physical brawl between two armed forces but it also occur mentally and emotionally. On page 139 of A Separate Peace, a quote was mentioned by Gene, "...because it seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and theirs special stupidities but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart..." This quote can relate to the novel, a personal experience and another literary work.

“The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world” (Arendt pg 80). Violence is contagious, like a disease, which will destroy nations and our morals as human beings. Each individual has his or her own definition of violence and when it is acceptable or ethical to use it. Martin Luther King Jr., Walter Benjamin, and Hannah Arendt are among the many that wrote about the different facets of violence, in what cases it is ethical, the role we as individuals play in this violent society and the political aspects behind our violence.

History has a tendency to repeat itself.  One of humanity’s most popular ways of getting its point across is through violence.  When words are no longer enough to argue a point, human casualties not only directly solve the problem, but symbolically send a message to all those affected as well.  Just as the American colonies fought against the British for Freedom when their voice was no longer heard, and just as the Islamic extremists used terrorism to send an evil message to America, both V and Chancellor Sutler used violence to gain a voice in a world of chaos.

Instinctivist theories on human aggressiveness often promote the notion that warfare is in the nature of humankind and therefore cannot be prevented. However Margaret Mead eloquently refuted this idea in her renowned essay Warfare: an Invention – Not a Biological Necessity. Mead states, “War is inevitable unless we change our social system and outlaw classes, the struggle for power, and possessions; and in the event of our success warfare would disappear, as a symptom vanishes when the disease is cured.” Through this statement Mead makes it clear that because aggression and subsequently warfare is a learned invention, it can be avoided. For the purposes of this essay, aggression will be defined as “a response that delivers noxious stimuli to another organism.” This essay will outline how and why aggression, and thus warfare, is not biological and is rather a behaviour that is learned as a reaction to social stimuli. Furthermore, it will be explained that violence is used by societies as a political weapon to achieve ostensible objectives.

Octavia Butler portrays a realistic side of violence in her novel, Parable of the Sower, violence is some time necessary if you want to live. When Lauren is forced with an obvious yet painful decision of killing her attacker that grabbed her on the road, she stabs the man but she also feels the pain of the knife being thrusted into her chest due to her hyper-empathy syndrome. Lauren had to kill the man because if she didn’t she would not just feel the pain she would have died instead. Violence is not pretty nor painless but when it comes down to Lauren’s life or another’s she eliminates the threat. Butler also demonstrates a proper side to war, Lauren never started a war but when she found herself in one she made sure to win. Throughout the entire book Lauren not once was looking for a fight, she was actually avoiding them, like when they were camped off

"Your surroundings may change but your essence and your personality pretty much stay the same" (Dewan). The setting of the novel A Separate Peace is at an all boys school located in New Hampshire. The characters and plot are finely woven into the fabric of this institution. However, would events in this novel turn out differently if the story was set in a public high school, with a diverse environment? The characters and plot of A Separate Peace are not solely driven by their surroundings because the boys would still break the rules, Gene would have internal conflicts, and the war would affect the students.

The ignorance and innocence of the summer session are quickly fragmented when the seriousness of Gene’s actions are unveiled with Finny’s death.

Here we see Lady Macbeth calling dark spirits to take away her pureness and give poison just so she could have the power to kill the king showing us she has no guilt, which shows us the non-violent “female” traits are just as powerful as violent “male” ones.

It is said that up to thirty thousand men may have died at the battle of Hastings, a conflict that occurred almost one thousand years ago. World War II, which lasted less than seven years, has been estimated to be responsible for up to forty million deaths. Thus, many people often ask the question why? Why does such conflict occur? Who or what is responsible? The culprit does not hide nor has it escaped scrutiny and blame. It comes in many shapes and sizes, faces and places. It is called violence and the potential for it resides in every single person on this earth. Whose violence conquers all? It is hard to measure the significance of violence, especially when it can cause so much destruction and death as well as stimulation. However,

A Separate Peace, which was written by John Knowles, has many themes. They are interconnected throughout the book. The most clearly portrayed theme is fear. It seems to be connected with the themes of friendship, jealousy, and war. As World War II was occurring, fear had taken over Gene's life through these various themes. When he visited Devon fifteen years after leaving the school, Gene claimed, "I had lived in fear while attending the school and I can now feel fear's echo" (Knowles 10). He felt like he had gained a separate peace after escaping from this fear.

As an allotment of manhood, the essence of brutality, especially in a warrior, is deemed essential. Men are expected to have that ruthlessness among their character as it was envisioned by humans beforehand. “Because this state of mind is rarely attained, and when achieved, nearly impossible to maintain, androgyny is an ideal goal- a vision of unity and harmony beyond the confines of gender, within the confines of the human” (Kimbrough 133). They are envisaged to be very masculine and cruel in order to be able to kill their opponents in battle without feeling guilt or regret. It is a man’s job to prolong this aspect due to that women are defined to have a gentle heart and be regretful of any vicious acts.

Throughout history, violent women and women with violent intent have starkly emerged from many countries, carving their niches in myths and legends. The creation of these stories suggests that men began to notice lethality in feminine charm centuries back.

The reader can tell that Woolf feels very strongly about the mistreatment of women in the past, which often makes for an effective argument. Her strong

Some women abuse feminism by using it as an excuse to speak their minds, but others use feminism as a tool to open people's eyes to the often ignored problem of inequality. This belief in a tolerant assertiveness, a claim in human participation and human rights is called power feminism (Wolf, 1993). If used ideally, power feminism effectively accomplishes its task of bringing "self worth. . . to every woman's life," states Naomi Wolf. On the other hand, victim feminism makes a woman out to be a defenseless angel who pleads for the mercy of other by acting as a victim. Seeking power through a powerless position of dependence only slows the feminist movement.

War is an important theme in Mrs. Dalloway (1925), a post World War I text. While on the one hand there is the focus on Mrs. Dalloway’s domestic life and her ‘party consciousness’, on the other there are ideas of masculinity and “patriotic zeal that stupefy marching boys into a stiff yet staring corpse and perniciously public-spirited doctors” , and the sense of war reverberates in the entire text. Woolf’s treatment of the Great War is different from the normative way in which the War is talked about in the post world war I texts. She includes in her text no first hand glimpse of battlefield, instead gives a detached description. This makes it more incisive because she delineates the after effects in personal ordinary lives. Judith